Indigenous spiritual leaders say the Vatican’s observatory is searching for something it doesn’t understand.
Arts & Culture
Posted inArticles
How yellowcake shaped the West
The ghosts of the uranium boom continue to haunt the land, water and people.
Posted inAugust 1, 2021: A Mega-Dairy Comes to the Desert
Climate change is the ultimate neo-noir subject
The novel ‘Something New Under the Sun’ treats a smoke-filled Los Angeles as its own genre.
Posted inAugust 1, 2021: A Mega-Dairy Comes to the Desert
The new Indigenous TV series coming your way
‘Reservation Dogs’ is the latest product of an exciting new era of Native self-representation.
Posted inJuly 1, 2021: An Urban Greenspace Revolution
How to live with fire
Wildfire needs new narratives. The podcast ‘Fireline’ is a start.
Posted inArticles
Five shots in Denver
In 2013, anti-gang activist Terrance Roberts shot a man in the Holly, a historically Black neighborhood in Denver. What really happened that night?
Posted inArticles
Where land use and landscape photography converge
A would-be museum exhibit, canceled due to COVID, is now collected in the book ‘American Geography: Photographs of Land Use from 1840 to the Present.’
Posted inJune 1, 2021: Once and Future Fires
The everyday violence of Indian Country’s ‘bordertowns’
In ‘Red Nation Rising,’ violence in the communities abutting reservations illuminates colonialism’s continued presence.
Posted inMay 1, 2021: Beauty and Biodiversity in the Borderlands
The Colorado town that became a transgender haven
In ‘Going to Trinidad,’ histories illuminate — and obscure — the outcomes of gender transition.
Posted inArticles
Threatened species and how we might save them
Michelle Nijhuis details history’s successes as a road map for today’s conservationists in her new book ‘Beloved Beasts.’
Posted inArticles
New Tom Hanks Western minimizes Indigeneity
‘News of the World’ reconsiders the captivity narrative but only through a white gaze.
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Modern redemption in a small New Mexican town
Kirstin Valdez Quade’s debut novel depicts everyday Catholicism in a struggling family.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
All fracked up: A debut memoir wrestles with toxic masculinity in the oil fields
Michael Patrick F. Smith’s ‘The Good Hand’ offers sharp observations on North Dakota’s extraction industry.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
The alternatives to Instagram-ready desert art
Popular installations often frame the desert as austere and inhospitable. But there are artists who look at the land differently.
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
‘Wild Indian’ is much more than just an Indigenous film
Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s new picture pushes Indigenous cinema into the realm of the thriller genre, but does it go far enough?
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
Finding meaning on Joan Didion’s frontier
With the release of a new collection, the 86-year-old author returns to her old work and a vast, complicated legacy.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
Meet the gun-toting ‘Tenacious Unicorns’ in rural Colorado
How a transgender-owned alpaca ranch in Colorado foretells the future of the rural queer West.
Posted inArticles
See HCN’s best illustrations from 2020
Artists elevated our journalism with surprising aesthetics and creativity.
Posted inArticles
How one student brings soil science down to earth
Bo Collins’ goofy, profanity-laden social media presence makes scientific research seem humorous and relatable.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
From boxes of memorabilia, sifting out a life
In her debut memoir, Danielle Geller researches her elusive mother — and the meaning of family.